What is Osteoarthritis? How to Prevent and Treat Painful Joints
Throughout your life, you might have heard friends and relatives mention different types of arthritis or musculoskeletal pain they need to manage. We have all felt sympathy for our loved ones trying to prevent such joint-related issues, or may also face the same pain and stiffness.
What is Osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis, also known as "wear and tear" arthritis, is one of several types of musculoskeletal and skin diseases. It is the most common form of arthritis affecting 32.5 million U.S. adults.
It occurs most frequently from the breakdown of joint lining cartilage, which cushions the ends of the bones, and then proceeds to deteriorate the underlying bone over time. Osteoarthritis typically affects the body's weight-bearing joints like the knees, hands, hips, and spine. Knee osteoarthritis and hip osteoarthritis are two of the most common forms of degenerative joint disease.
Osteoarthritis prevention is especially important to understand since osteoarthritis causes joint damage by breaking down healthy cartilage and underlying bone. When cartilage wears, it causes painful joints, joint deformity, joint instability, and and and can inhibit your range of motion.
What is the Difference Between Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis?
Unlike the autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis pain occurs from mechanical wear and tear over time. Joint pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis is from the body's immune system attacking its own joints.
What Are Common Symptoms of Osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis causes changes in your joint tissue that you begin to increasingly notice due to structural alterations in the cartilage and bone of the affected areas. However, you might also feel pain and discomfort in the surrounding ligaments, joint capsules, and muscles.
Here Are Some Common Symptoms to Help You Determine Whether You Might Have Osteoarthritis:
Joint stiffness upon waking up in the morning or for periods of inactivity.
Pain in the affected joints during or after movement.
Tenderness in your joints when you apply some pressure on the spot or near it.
Swelling caused by soft tissue inflammation surrounding the joint.
Sounds and sensations from the affected joint—you might hear crackling or popping and feel resistance or grating in the joint.
Bone spurs, or osteophytes, are extra pieces of bone projections that form along the bone edges of the affected joint.
Decreased flexibility preventing you from moving your joint through its full range of motion. At first, this might seem like an inconvenience, but without proper self-care and treatment, you might find a more pronounced and prohibitive lack of mobility and function.
It is possible that you can encounter some structural changes but not actually experience symptoms from them. However, if you do have symptoms, it is typically manifested by pain when moving the joint, and tenderness along the joint line. For example, if you have osteoarthritis in your knees, you will feel pain when pressing on the joint line to the right and left of your kneecap.
Fortunately, you can manage osteoarthritis symptoms, but if the joints become damaged, there is no way to reverse that. Therefore, as always, we encourage you to seek out osteoarthritis prevention as early as possible, especially after the age of 50 years.
What Are Common Risk Factors for Developing Osteoarthritis?
One of the most significant risk factors for developing osteoarthritis is the aging process. You might find yourself at greater risk if you have or experience the following factors:
Sex- Women are more prone to developing osteoarthritis, although experts cannot identify precisely why.
Previous Joint Injuries- You might have participated in sports throughout your youth and until now. During sports activities, whether playing football or hiking and everything in-between, it is not unusual to encounter an accident that affects your bones and joints that could increase your risk of osteoarthritis as you age. No matter how long ago you experienced injuries and how well they healed, they can still cause osteoarthritis later in life.
Repetitive Stress Injuries to Joints- You're probably familiar with the concept of repetitive stress injuries in various work environments, such as typists or factory line workers using repetitive motions, or those incurred by playing sports, which often involve repetitive motions.
Genetics- Genetics is often a powerful component in the development of certain diseases, disorders, and conditions. Some people do inherit a propensity for the development of osteoarthritis.
Obesity- Any extra body weight you gain and carry can put you at risk of developing osteoarthritis by adding stress to your weight-bearing joints, including your hips, knees, and ankles. Further, fat tissue can produce proteins that cause and exacerbate harmful inflammation surrounding your joints.
Lifelong Issues Such as Bone Deformities- Sometimes people are born with defective cartilage or joints that are not fully or properly formed.
Metabolic Diseases- Metabolic diseases such as diabetes and hemochromatosis, which is a condition wherein your body produces too much iron, can cause osteoarthritis to develop.
How Can You Determine Whether You Have Osteoarthritis?
A physical exam is necessary to diagnose osteoarthritis. If you schedule regular check-ups with your primary care physician, you probably keep your finger on the pulse of your health. If you start to feel increasing joint discomfort or pain, accompanied by some strange snapping and crackling sounds, you may want to ask your physician to take a look.
Do You Need Imaging to Have Osteoarthritis Diagnosed?
You probably don’t need an MRI to diagnose osteoarthritis. Many patients request an MRI, but it is an unnecessary cost that many providers offer to put patients' minds at ease. However, if your provider is confident that you suffer from osteoarthritis, an X-Ray is all you need to get the appropriate confirmation to proceed with care and treatment options.
In an X-Ray, medical professionals can easily identify bone changes or the joint space narrowing, meaning there is less cushion between your joints. If your provider shows you an X-Ray comparing a healthy joint to one of someone suffering from osteoarthritis, you can easily see the difference yourself.
What Type of Osteoarthritis Treatment Is Available to Help Reduce Pain?
While there is no cure for osteoarthritis, there are treatment options to decrease joint pain.
Lifestyle
Many studies have shown that, for people who are overweight or obese, losing just 5% of your bodyweight can lead to substantial relief on all fronts, including any issues with your joints.
Additionally, physical therapy that features a focus on strengthening the muscles surrounding your affected joints, can help with pain relief. The stronger the surrounding muscles are, the more pressure it can and will likely take off your osteoarthritic joint. You can work with a physical therapist or occupational therapist to target severe pain.
Here Are Some Additional Lifestyle Changes You Can Make to Support Your Joints and Reduce the Pain and Discomfort of Osteoarthritis:
Get Active and Stay Active- Mild to moderate physical activity, according to your abilities and comfort, will help decrease the pain and discomfort of osteoarthritis. Adults with osteoarthritis benefit greatly from more movement and less time sitting during the day. Engage in activities like walking, biking, swimming, and strength training. You will also improve function, flexibility, mood, and overall quality of life. Strive to get in at least 150 minutes of moderate activity during the week, but if you can't hit that combined duration, anything you can do to start and build on that will help. Talk to your regular physician or a coach at Mighty Health to determine your optimal exercise regimen.
Achieve and Maintain a Healthy Weight- Any extra weight you put on your joints will make osteoarthritis matters worse. Decide on the best diet to help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight, such as low-carb or keto, or what works best for you and that you can continue doing for the long-term. Losing weight is one of the best ways to prevent and manage osteoarthritis.
Avoid Activities That Put Your Joints at Risk- Remember to keep your activities at a moderate level, so avoid participating in activities like running, jumping, tennis, or basketball, and opt for fitness pursuits like swimming, water aerobics, gentle cycling, or walking.
Maintain Communication with Your Physician and Your Health Coach-Regular visits to your healthcare provider are essential as you get older, so touch base with them regarding your condition with each annual visit to determine the best path forward. Simultaneously, work with your certified health coach on a daily, weekly, or another scheduled basis to stay motivated by introducing new activities, benchmarks, and goals to keep you enthused. Work with your coach to find exercises, natural therapies, and other types of osteoarthritis self care to maintain a high quality of life managing your condition.
Staying active, maintaining a healthy weight, and working with healthcare professionals might slow the progression of the disease and help improve pain and joint function.
Medication
If you are looking to ease pain, we urge osteoarthritis sufferers to avoid narcotics because they offer no long-term benefits. Instead, we recommend using nonsteroidal anti inflammatory drugs such as Tylenol or Ibuprofen because they are both much safer. Tylenol is the safest of oral pain relievers since prolonged Ibuprofen usage can become harmful.
Ideally, you will use a multi-modal approach to relieve symptoms that involves using a heating pad and ice pack to ensure efficacy of each pain-relieving modality.
Procedures
Today, there are more and more procedures and injections your provider might recommend for pain relief. There are injections of platelet-rich plasma, stem cells, hyaluronic acid, and steroids. There are still ongoing studies seeking to determine which types of injections are superior.
Many patients wonder whether steroid injections are bad for them, having heard that these injections could further damage their cartilage. In a 2017 study conducted by Tufts University in Boston, half of the randomized 140 patients received steroid treatments every three months, and half received saline injections every three months as a placebo. They followed these patients for two years, and found greater volume loss of cartilage in those who received steroid injections. Even worse, they experienced no major differences in pain control compared to the placebo group.
There are some limitations in the study:
It is difficult to determine the cause of the volume loss of cartilage with certainty.
The study did not follow up on pain relief matters shortly after injections. The efficacy is most noted a week or so after the injection. In Dr. Tam's experience giving steroid injections, patients sometimes experience pain relief for six months and up to a year. Some patients experience no relief at all. It all comes down to you and your body, and how you respond.
Our Mighty Health Team Can Help You Tackle Osteoarthritis Safely
Our ideal goal is to help you with osteoarthritis prevention. However, we know it is not always preventable, so we then focus on the best osteoarthritis treatment for you. Our Mighty Health Team wants to help you develop a lifestyle filled with self-care and excellent health, fitness, and dietary choices that support good joint and bone health as you age.
